Review by Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Liam Calvert
Starring: Alexander Lincoln, Jack Brett Anderson, David Bradley, Jimmy Ericson, Beth Rylance, Kane Surry
On reflection, I think the film which fucked me up the most was Scorsese neo-noir oddity After Hours. Not in terms of how, say, Watcher in the Woods messed with my head (couldn't sleep for weeks, lifelong fear of mirrors) but with regards to expectation versus reality. After Hours implied that the city came alive at night, with strange and beautiful nocturnal people abiding behind club and bars doors invisible in the daytime to get up to glamorous and arty caprice only viable under cover of the dark: it made the metropolis at moonlight a place of mysterious magic. As a kid I would lie awake, fantasising about the varied panchromatic adventures going on in the city 10 miles from my bedroom, longing for the moment I could tread the neon lit backstreets and electric avenues of, um, Cardiff. Similar to how I had eagerly imagined High School was going to be an all singing, all dancing extravaganza where boys worked on cars in shop and girls were universally fierce, ala Rydell High, I thought that the Welsh capital at night was a vespertine Shangri-La of basement clubs, off-clock escapade and Linda Fiorentino. Of course, the actuality, when it came, didn't match the exalted image I had cultivated: unlike the song, most cities do sleep, unless it involves queuing for half an hour to be squeezed into a sweatbox cavern with sloppy drunk people. Griffin Dunne never had to jostle for space with a stag do/hen night in Walkabout...
Director Liam Calvert and writer Diego Scerrati's A Night Like This is a sort of genteel take on Scorsese's 1985 outlier, as acutely depressed resting actor Lukas (Jack Brett Anderson) and guitar toting gadabout Oliver (Alexander Lincoln) meet cute in that London, for a night where, to quote imdb, they attempt to "find a meaning to their miserable lives" (I think this is the 67th film I've reviewed this year which focuses on winsome millennials being upset at how hard it all is. What is going on, Gen Y?). Although the menace of Scorsese's 1985 black comedy is absent, the lads' journey of discovery similarly entails late night bars and subterranean clubs, along with Guy's Hospital, in an evening which seems infinite as the two interact with a cast of picaresque characters and discover true friendship or something: like the tentative conclusion of the film itself, I am unsure.
Despite occasional missteps, A Night Like This has charm in abundance. It's impossible to take against this sweet natured bromance, even as it initially essays perhaps everyone's worst social nightmare. Fresh from almost throwing himself off Blackfriars Bridge, Lukas seeks a melancholic pint in a nearby boozer, where he is accosted by the braying Oliver: he pleads poverty at the bar, stating that he should have a free pint because "it's Christmas" (the ostensible yuletide setting is a feature which the film doesn't quite make enough of). The barman is unmoved, so Oliver chugs stranger Lukas's pint while working within the logic that the barman will give the sad-sack actor a fresh one. Then, on the night bus, Oliver spots Lukas again, and chums up next to him, because he's been sick in the back and it smells. He then gloms onto the beleaguered actor. Is there anything more inauspicious than a drunk stranger latching on to you over an evening? That human churn of pity and social obligation being taken advantage of?
Lukas doesn't really seem to mind. I suppose he was about to jump into the Thames a minute ago and is throughout the film plagued by flashbacks of what seems to be a hostile sex-work episode which occurred earlier in the endless evening though, and so off he goes into the good night with Oliver. This is despite Oliver being outed as a bullshitter when his open wallet reveals a wodge of scores despite his apparent incapacity to get a round in earlier (just as the film can't really reconcile Lukas' darkness with the breezy set pieces, this is a narrative lapse, as it suggests Oliver is a complete cad and you're left waiting for a shoe which never drops). Nevertheless, they go on to bond in late night bars and various musical venues (where Lincoln performs with the guitar: he's really good), with Oliver the blokey Tyler Durden to Lukas' naïf.
Alas, A Night Like This isn't quite adventurous to share that film's twist. It is a fairy tale, really, with the two connecting in a heavily romanticised LDN, which they seem have all to themselves, apart from occasional liminal characters. Despite being on the piss for hours, neither of them ever look or behave drunk. They get mugged but end up taking the track suited urchin assailant under their wing, and then to an A&E wing following another botched robbery (part of the film's escapist fantasy is that they get seen to straight away on a Christmas period night in London...). A Night Like This ambles along, seemingly without intention, but pleasantly enough. Uncharacteristically, an aspect of the film which I took against was the "will-they-won't-they" homoerotic hook up that the film teases throughout (involving a couple of hot and hungry kisses). Look, you know me, I'm an absolute romantic and live my life hoping every old sock meets an old shoe, and that everyone gets to have sex all the time. But the thing is, sex is straightforward. A hook up is lemon squeezy. Friendship, especially a platonic companionship between blokes, is a rarer beast, and a more interesting and complex path to explore. A Night Like This is at its most interesting when negotiating these interpersonal parameters.
Nonetheless, A Night Like This will win you over with its eager performances and eye for quirky, metropolitan detail. London is a city unique in its multitudes: unlike Prague, say, which is so very Prague-like, London has a seething polysemy. Each person's experience of the city is bespoke, and unless you forge a decisive trail through its winding streets, it will simply wash you away in a wave of Angus Steak Houses and red phone-box fridge magnets. As ever, it helps if you know someone, and, via well-meaning gobshite Oliver's point man, with A Night Like This guides Calvert and Scerrati lead us through an enjoyable flâner.
A Night Like This is in UK cinemas from September 26th.
